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Red herring. In the mystery novel A Study in Scarlet, the detective Sherlock Holmes examines a clue which is later revealed to be intentionally misleading. A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question. [1] It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences ...
Hitchcock used this plot device extensively. Many of his suspense films use this device: a detail that, by inciting curiosity and desire, drives the plot and motivates the characters' actions within the story. However, the specific identity of the item is unimportant to the plot. State secrets of various kinds serve as MacGuffins in several of ...
A red herring is a false clue intended to lead investigators toward an incorrect solution. [17] This device usually appears in detective novels and mystery fiction . The red herring is a type of misdirection , a device intended to distract the protagonist , and by extension the reader, away from the correct answer or from the site of pertinent ...
List of narrative techniques. A narrative technique (also, in fiction, a fictional device) is any of several storytelling methods the creator of a narrative uses, [1] thus effectively relaying information to the audience or making the narrative more complete, complex, or engaging. Some scholars also call such a technique a narrative mode ...
The use of a MacGuffin as a plot device predates the name MacGuffin. The Holy Grail of Arthurian legend has been cited as an early example of a MacGuffin. The Holy Grail is the desired object that is essential to initiate and advance the plot, but the final disposition of the Grail is never revealed, suggesting that the object is not of significance in itself. [8]
Many stories, especially in the fantasy genre, feature an object or objects with some great magical power, such as a crown, sword, or jewel. Often what drives the plot is the hero's need to find the object and use it for good, before the villain can use it for evil, or if the object has been broken by the villains, to retrieve each piece that must be gathered from each antagonist to restore it ...
Foreshadowing is a narrative device in which a storyteller gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story. Foreshadowing often appears at the beginning of a story, and it helps develop or subvert the audience's expectations about upcoming events. [ 1 ][ 2 ] The writer may implement foreshadowing in many different ways such as ...
Robert Herring (Robert Herring Williams, b. 13 May 1903, Wandsworth – December 1975, Chelsea) was a novelist, essayist and poet, remembered as an early writer on film, being film critic of The Guardian for most of the 1930s, a regular contributor to the modernist film magazine Close Up, and later editor of the literary magazine, Life and Letters To-day from 1935 to 1950.